By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp
ECC
Date: Thursday, October 16
2024 Boys Champion – East Lyme, Runner-up – Norwich Free Academy
2024 Girls Champion: Lyman Memorial, Runner-up – Ledyard
Location: Norwich Golf Course
Boys Preview
By Mike Flynn
East Lyme has won a conference record 7 straight championships but will enter this season with more questions than the past few seasons. The Vikings return Sam Leone, Jack Faitsch and Joey Papalia from last year’s team, which was the State Open and New England Runner-Ups. Griswold and Ledyard stand out as the top two teams to challenge East Lyme for the overall crown and will meet up again as possibly the top two favorites for the Class M Meet. Griswold returns their top 5 from the Class SS Runner-Up team. Led by All-New England Tycen Labelle, the Wolverine’s 2-5 runners offer an impressive spread that leaves little room for other teams to sneak in.
Ledyard, 2023 Class M State Champions and third in 2024, return their 2-7 runners. The Colonels have built a consistent contender in the last few years and seem to have the firepower to challenge for the top spot in the ECC and Class M led by a close knit trio of Greyson Stephenson, Lucas Heide and Raymond Grogan. Woodstock seems to be a dark horse as they featured an impressive roster of young runners during the 2024-2025 school year along with Bacon Academy.
Division 1: East Lyme and Ledyard seem like the favorites with Woodstock looking to shake things up.
Division 2: Seems to be a good battle between Griswold, Lyman Memorial and Bacon Academy. Griswold has plenty of proven talent and is their clear favorite while Bacon had some younger runners who really started to build something. Lyman Memorial returns 6 of their 7 and will look to mix it up.
Division 3: Plainfield seems to return the most to make a run at the D3 title. Montville and Wheeler could contend for the title as well.
Back-to-Back ECC Champion, Sean McCauley has graduated so the conference will crown a new champion. Two of the State’s top overall runners, Griswold’s Labelle and East Lyme’s Leone, should make this quite the interesting and fast race. Labelle has excelled at an unprecedented level through his young career and will look to add individual conference honors along as one of the favorites at the Connecticut State Open. Labelle is second returning runner from last year’s Open and finished 10th at New England’s as a sophomore. Leone is the…
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